Sound of Silence
by Runawaybaby555
Summary: "Spencer, you would never hurt anyone on purpose. You know that, right?" Spencer squeezes her eyes tightly shut. How can Aria be so sure? [Sparia one-shot, what SHOULD have happened as soon as Emily and Hanna left the room. R&R please!]


**Hello, dear readers! If you are on this story, that means you love Sparia, which automatically means I love you. And if you love Sparia, you've _definitely_ noticed how the writers have been purposely depriving us of their glorious friendship this season, which is a terrible thing. But hey, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, and in this case the lemonade is a Sparia fic that basically illustrates what I badly want to happen on the show, and what I REALLY wish had happened when Hanna and Emily left them alone in the room together last episode. So, without further ado, I present to you just that, so enjoy, and if you like what you see, be sure to review/favorite/WHATEVER to let me know! AND, for those of you who are curious, the words in Italics belong to that of "Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel, which is a beautiful song that you should definitely look up as soon as you finish this... or while you read it, I don't care!**

**Enough rambling. Enjoy the story!**

___~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~_

_Hello darkness, my old friend  
__I've come to talk with you again  
__Because a vision softly creeping  
__Left its seeds while I was sleeping_

_~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~._~

The door slams closed, and Spencer feels every muscle in her body flinch, the silence hitting her nerves with a painful _smack_. For the past few days, she has been evasive with silence, as though she is keeping secrets from it. And the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes she _is_ keeping secrets from silence, as well as everybody else.

Every time Spencer is alone, she tries her hardest to fill up as much space as she possibly can. She fidgets, she walks around, she does laundry, she memorizes a poem, she recites digits of pi, she occupies herself in whatever way she can because standing still makes her feel vulnerable. As soon as she stops, as soon as she and silence meet face to face, painful memories and theories hit her like a tidal wave, guilt encompassing her like a powerful current of saltwater and making it near impossible for her to swim to shore. And the minute she does swim to shore, her secrets are waiting for her like the tattered remains of a demolished sandcastle.

An unwelcome greeting. A taunting. A threat to come clean. Spencer has come to terms with how dangerous silence is, because while her friends might not know where her troubled thoughts are heading, silence does.

And that is perhaps the worst part.

Looking for an escape, a way to keep the silence from winning, Spencer turns around and presses her hands against Emily's desk, tapping her fingers against the hardwood in a rhythmic pattern. She looks down at her tennis shoes, studying a few dirt stains at the toes and making a note to clean them off later, but for the first time her laser focus isn't enough to keep her thoughts at bay.

Her wired mind gives in as emotional exhaustion takes over, and she is soon thinking about that night again. She can feel her fingers curl around the smooth mahogany handle of the shovel, she can hear her breath hitch in her throat as she runs through the woods, and the longer she stares at her shoes, the more vivid the image of the coarse veins of fallen leaves becomes. The faster she runs, the more blurred the leaves become, until she can't look down anymore. She has to look up to see where she's going, but as soon as she jerks her head upright, everything comes out of focus. Disoriented, she loses her balance, stumbles forward, and next thing she knows -

"Spencer?" an unsure voice sounds in the background, and Spencer shoots up from her hunched position like a jack-in-the-box. She then realizes that she hasn't been imagining her hitched breathing, for when she notes her reflexion in Emily's window, she can see the shallow rise and fall of her chest. She also notes the knots in her hair, the ashen tone to her skin, the sunkenness of her eyes, and she is finally pulled from her memory as she discerns what is real right now from what she still doesn't know to be true. Her reflexion is murky, yet it is the most tangible thing for her to hold onto right now for the sole reason of what she sees next to her near trembling frame in the window.

Aria is sitting on the bed, her reflexion making her look like an old faded photograph. Her doe eyes are widened with concern as she pleads for an answer with nothing but her facial expressions. "Do you... do you want to talk about what just happened?" she asks meekly, and Spencer almost laughs out loud at this question. Of course she wants to talk. She will give anything for a mindless, small conversation about the weather, or her French test next week, or even the U.S.'s policy when approaching global affairs. She will immediately take a six hour conversation on any of these topics over one word about what she has just admitted to her friends sixty seconds ago.

Spencer doesn't turn around quite yet. She meets Aria's gaze in the window with a gaze of her own, but hers feels much more desperate. It's the cry for help that she doesn't want to set free, no matter how badly she needs to get it out of her system. "No," Spencer finally answers. "I'd rather not."

Aria purses her lips into a thin line, and Spencer knows this isn't the answer she wants; she feels even worse that she can't give Aria that answer. The past week has been a particularly rough one for Aria, and Spencer finds it ironic that she can't be strong enough for her. The only reason she is in this state of weakness is because she has gone so far out of her way to find answers, to seek vengeance, to do everything in her power to protect Aria and keep her safe, but somehow all she has done was drive her away like opposite poles of a magnet. When Spencer thinks of how her actions nearly got Aria killed in the woods by her ex-boyfriend, she wishes she could reverse everything she's ever done the minute she took her very first pill.

And now here Spencer is, not even looking Aria directly in the eye, when she is the reason for so much of Aria's pain, so much of her heartbreak.

But Aria is clever, and somehow, even through the faded reflection, she can read Spencer like a book. "Spencer, I can't even remember the last time we had a real conversation," she says slowly, as though speaking in a different manner will send Spencer running off into the night. "Have you been avoiding me because of... _this?_"

Spencer grips the edge of the desk with all of her might and feels her knuckles go numb with the pain. When she feels like her fingers are going to fall off, she releases the tension, and then ducks her head as she watches them turn from white to a peachy pink color. "Not at first," she admits. "But when I found out about how Ezra cornered you on that ski lift, I couldn't help but feel like it was all my fault... and I honestly still feel like that."

"It's not," Aria assures, and Spencer hears her position on the bed shift as her boots make contact with the ground, but that's all she hears, so she concludes that Aria is standing, but hasn't advanced forward yet.

She also concludes that this means Aria detects fragility in Spencer, something she's always hated, but now she hates it even more because she can't help but think that Aria is afraid of coming closer due to _fear_. If Spencer tried to kill Alison, who's to say she won't do the same to another close friend?

Even though she can't see Aria right now, Spencer can still hear her, and her voice is the softest she's ever heard it. "Spencer, you would never hurt anyone on purpose. You know that, right?"

Spencer squeezes her eyes tightly shut. How can Aria be so sure? "You're not just talking about you and Ezra, are you?"

Now Spencer hears the padding of Aria's feet against the floor, and she can feel the subtle vibrations in the ground as she approaches Spencer. It's a mix of comforting and alarming; comforting because it means Aria isn't afraid of Spencer the way Spencer feels she should be, yet alarming because Spencer understands this to mean the subject at hand won't be dropped for a long while. "Why do you think you tried to kill Ali?"

"Why do you sound so surprised?" Spencer answers dryly, her head still ducked as she studies the contents on Emily's desk, trying to find anything to distract herself, to get herself out of the current conversation. She focuses on a spiral notebook, a container of pens, a novel they have to read for English, but no matter how hard she tries to avert her attention, she's sucked back in by the silence that graces the room the longer she chooses not to speak. "You all know that I couldn't stand Ali."

"Spencer, _none_ of us could stand Ali," Aria argues from behind her, and Spencer notes that her voice is increasing in volume now. "You were just the only one who wasn't afraid to make that clear."

"Yeah, and look at where _that_ got me." Spencer's voice is gravelly now as she realizes the weight of her words. If what she believes is true, if she did do the deed, then she is the reason for all of the strife in their lives. She is the reason A is after her and her friends, she is the reason Ezra betrayed Aria, and she is the reason they all probably won't even graduate high school without getting offed.

And if Spencer knows her luck well enough, she can guess the weapon used will be a shovel.

"You can't let what Ezra said get to you," Aria says firmly. "He's... he's lied before. I bet he doesn't even really think it, he probably just wrote it because he thought it'd be a good twist or something."

"But all good twists make _sense_, Aria!" Spencer growls, surprising herself as she raises her head again, looking in the mirror at a wary-looking Aria, who is standing behind Spencer with a hard look on her face and a tremor to her hands. But Spencer wonders if it's Aria shaking... or herself. "Ezra made a valid guess based on evidence he collected in that journal you found in his apartment."

"If Ezra's collecting evidence, he's manipulating it for his story," Aria retorts, her tone getting harsher and harsher with each word she spits off of her tongue. "If I've learned anything, it's not to trust a thing that _asshole_ says - "

"Then why'd you go to his apartment, huh?" Spencer blurts out, anger boiling up inside of her suddenly as reasoning jumps out of the way. "Why'd you take the pages? Why did _you_ decide to trust him again?"

"Because you're not the only one who feels like she's destroyed everything, Spencer!"

Spencer feels her heart stop as she whips around to fully face Aria for the first time since Emily and Hanna went downstairs to get snacks. As she looks closer, she realizes that Aria is the one who has been shaking this entire time. Her knees are quivering, and there are tears in her eyes as she intensely stares up at Spencer. "I hate seeing you like this," she says, her voice trembling as her throat twitches with unshed tears. "I hate the fact that you're not sleeping, and I hate the fact that you've had to go to rehab and have gone so far as to think you're _capable_ of something like this because I know that if I hadn't gotten so close to Ezra, it could've been avoided."

Spencer remains speechless as Aria crosses her arms, sniffling loudly. "Spence... you didn't hurt Ali. You couldn't have. And the sooner you get that out of your mind, the sooner you can get better."

Spencer still doesn't know what to say, but she doesn't like when Aria cries. She would rather see a line up of small bunnies get kicked than watch Aria cry. Feeling tears of her own start to fall, Spencer advances forward and reaches up to wipe away Aria's with a small flick of her thumb.

"You know me," she says before letting out a sound that's a mix between a laugh and a sob. "I'll never be able to let this go until I have proof. But... whatever happens, let's just agree that it would've happened either way, and it's not the fault of either of us. Okay?"

At first Aria doesn't look entirely satisfied, and Spencer knows that she wishes that the theory can be forgotten, swiped away as though a gust of wind has picked it off the ground. But Spencer also knows that Aria, out of anyone, understands what it's like to take things one step at a time, and this is a process that they'll get through together. It's time to stop pushing each other away; they need each other now more than ever, and nothing is going to stop them from being there for each other.

"Okay," Aria finally says, before standing on her toes and wrapping her tiny arms around Spencer in a surprisingly powerful hug. Spencer hugs back, and Aria rubs calming circles up and down the frame of her spine, a minute gesture that Spencer would have never guessed that she could miss so much.

"Feel better soon, Spence," Aria whispers into Spencer's ear, and Spencer doesn't answer. She just rests her head on the crook of Aria's shoulder, letting the sound of silence take over.

And for once, she isn't afraid of it anymore.

_~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~_

_And the vision that was planted in my brain  
__Still remains  
__Within the sound of silence._

___~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~_


End file.
